(MAJOR SPOILERS) Just beat Endwalker MSQ...

[Sacae]

For what it's worth, I also enjoyed EW more than HW, for pretty much the same reasons as the OP. HW is definitely a better-crafted story, but none of it hit me as hard as Garlemald, Thavnair, or Ultima Thule.

The "walk through the ghosts" portion of UT hit hard, even when doing it the second time on my alt. As much as our Elezan friend's death in HW gets brought up, I have to admit I never really felt any real attachment to him. On the other hand, when Zenos took over my body in Garlemald, I was outraged. HW never really evoked that kind of emotion in me.

[Jeeqbit]

did they have to keep everyone in the dark about it constantly?

The foreknowledge that their world was doomed was knowledge that they wouldn't want to slip out because people riot and loot, so they erased their own memories of it. They knew what they had to do but they didn't know why. They just knew it was important.

given that the Scions are world heroes at this point, I think letting them in on the plan somehow would have been a smart move.

They didn't see them as that. They saw the scions as people fighting petty wars and conflicts that were ultimately meaningless because the world was soon going to end.

Venat knew just about everything that was going to happen, and... basically didn't do too much to help out.

She sundered the world (and Zodiark) because the Ascians couldn't deal with it and were being tempered by Zodiark to endlessly sacrifice themselves to his cause. According to Metion's report, all other species ended themselves with things like sacrifice, remember. When she saw them giving themselves to Zodiark, they were following a similar pattern to all the people you see in the Dead End's dungeon.

They were unable to benefit from dynamis. By sundering them, they were able to interpret dynamis as something which creates emotion and triumph.

Too much of it could still make them use their aether to create beasts, of course, so that's why Zodiark was important and she only sundered and bound him instead of destroying him.

but her plan for preventing the end of the world had an awful lot of gambles in it; she best be lucky that the story went how it did.

She had backup plans remember. If somehow in this timeline you didn't do what you were going to and Zodiark got freed, she would have a way for them to escape the solar system.

the sacrifice of all of the Scions in Ultima Thule; yeah, it's effective - at first - but by the end it just felt slightly ridiculous

Seeing so many of your beloved characters die all at once fills you with despair. Which is exactly what they wanted you to feel in Ultima Thule because it's about despair.

They had a "despair" heart string and pressed it. They didn't need to kill them off permanently to make you feel despair, they just needed to worry you that they would kill them off and although it becomes fairly obvious they would be resurrected by the Ea island, it's overall quite depressing because you can't entirely be sure if they are just going to finish them all to end for the finale.

the mission where you get to play as an Imperial Soldier to be fun; yeah, it's a complete pain in the ass, and I certainly would mind the difficultly getting adjusted slightly

If you fail it and do it again, you can change the diffficulty from normal to very easy.It was a lot of fun for me personally. People who complain about it are why they don't make the MSQ hard.

[Nav_Fae]

I gave them the benefit of the doubt and read everything, but not gonna lie, saying it was better than Heavensward made it tempting to stop and leave the topic. However, some of their negatives I do agree with, especially on the Loporrits and pacing.

In my opinion, if we're comparing exclusively 3.0 to 6.0 and none of the patches are included; than yes EW is better than HW to me. I think weighting 3.1+ into HW to an expansion that is still ongoing is a little unfair.

[jameseoakes]

Well, I come back, and... I feel I've made some people upset. My apologizes; I looked over my original post and realized I didn't explain a few points as well as I thought I did; that's what happens when you get rushed to type something out. Let me see if I can explain my thoughts a bit better now; grab a drink or two, this might take a bit.



I'm not saying that it's really a "good" thing to do; I'm just pointing out that, sometimes, you really do just need to get up and try and deal with the problem and keep going. We kinda did it ourselves back in Heavensward, with Emmanellian; it's not a nice thing to do, but in a high-stress situation - especially in an apocalypse scenario - getting someone out of that mindset is important.



Let me see if I can explain this for you and the guys above; put simply, the Ancients didn't deserve what happened to them, it was just a very shitty situation all around. It's not that the Ancients were in the wrong for wanting to return to the way everything was - what they wanted was completely, perfectly understandable, and hell, if I were in Emet's shoes, I'd have done the exact same thing. The issue here, is Dynamis; the Ancient's were too broken by grief to be able to properly deal with it, wanting to go back to their lives that they had before, but they couldn't because the Endsinger was still active - that, and remember, the Ancients couldn't deal with Dynamis directly because they had too much Aether. The only one with any knowledge on the subject was Hermes, and even then, he wasn't exactly the best at understanding it; his interactions with Meteion are a good example.

They had no idea that metion was out there so as the imitate threat had been stopped mean that was the time to grieve while they work out how to rebuild and then maybe work out th truth of what had happened by Venat pronounces judgement on them and murders them all and most boils down to Eugenics is fine if we can other the victims enough. Venat is a monster who never gave the ancients a chance despite the sacrifices they made to save there world. I think it's sick the way the game portrays it.

[Nav_Fae]

We were lead to believe that she struck down Zodiark and imprisoned him on the moon to save mankind. I know it isn't like we met with Hydaelyn for tea on Wednesdays or anything, but omitting the whole, "I kinda killed everyone too." was a bit convenient towards accomplishing her goals. Obviously, the WoL cannot know this early on in order for this story to progress, but it also doesn't change that Venat was all of those things you mentioned. Every one of them. Even Evil. The ancients are capable of both good and evil acts, and the most powerful ones like Elidibus, Emet, Lahabrea and Venat have the ability to produce phenomenal feats when fueled by either of those pursuits.

I think a lot of the distaste people have with EW is that we keep trying to apply modern-day real-life morality to a fictional video game Ancient. Especially in a society that had completely different ideals of life and death. A society where being sent back to the star was considered an honored and a privilege. A society that is fully aware reincarnation exists. A society that is fully aware of the Aetherial Sea and the life stream. The Final Days was a problem because it would have prevented reincarnation and birth of any kind. In one way of looking at things, the sundering increased the population of everything by times 13 of its current. The game even goes the extra mile to try to point out that even though you share a soul, you're still your own person and your past self doesn't follow you. (at least until death when all your memories of all your lives collects together before reincarnation in some weird curl fate)

[Lustre]

Endwalker is the best piece of fiction every written, I was crying and farting uncontrollably the entire way through



Jkjk but seriously I wasnt a fan. Felt incredibly contrived and convenient. Lack of stakes, glaring plotholes, convenient "it just works bro" energy macguffin. Pacing as bad if not worse than stormblood. Redundant and borderline offensive messaging, the complete dismissal of the ancients and garlemald, making the WoL an accomplice in genocide, I could go on and on and on.

[Atelier-Bagur]

The genocide remarks people like to throw are seriously some of the most childish twitter-like comments I've seen come out of this community. Grow up people.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

The genocide remarks people like to throw are seriously some of the most childish twitter-like comments I've seen come out of this community. Grow up people.

Gotta agree, its virtue signaling of the highest degree and shows how few people have the actual ability to separate reality from fiction.

From what I've seen thru my lurking, this being brought up is almost exclusively used to de-rail and change the topic when someone likes the story or Venat, almost like a communal rebuke of a dissenting opinion. It's incredibly disingenuous.

[Nav_Fae]

Gotta agree, its virtue signaling of the highest degree and shows how few people have the actual ability to separate reality from fiction.

From what I've seen thru my lurking, this being brought up is almost exclusively used to de-rail and change the topic when someone likes the story or Venat, almost like a communal rebuke of a dissenting opinion. It's incredibly disingenuous.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion, and I respect opinions, but I'd be lying if it didn't erk me just how many people are pro Zenos and how hot daddy material he is. Then Venat comes in and that's too far and crosses a line.

[Jeeqbit]

It's not even genocide, is it? Because she doesn't kill them, she just sunders them. Many of them are about to sacrifice themselves anyway.

Eventually the sundered souls die of age, but so too do the Ascians return to the aetherial sea when they feel their duty is done.